Bricks

Prompt 3:

In Bricks, by far the most interesting and helpful combination of rules is how the player can move any crate simply by pushing it with the player, but if a crate is in a corner where the player cannot get under it, the player can move another crate to a position where the player stands in between the two crates. And if the player is standing in between two crates, both of the crates will move with the player, when the player moves. This interaction occurs fairly frequently and is key to completing certain levels. Personally, when this interaction caused me to complete one of the levels, I felt accomplished and satisfied, as it wasn’t extraordinarily obvious to me. This interaction is interesting because it is oddly dreamlike and is not something I have seen before in crate games. This rule could persist even if other rules slightly changed, or if the goal of the game changed from trying to find the staircase, to a common goal of crate games, being just to put crates in specific areas of the level. Another use for this interaction could be the player being able to move any number of crates that are side by side, instead of just moving the two crates on either side of you. Meaning that there could be two or three crates on top of the player and two or three crates under the player, all being moved with the user's movements. This interaction could add some more complexity if the author were to try and add more levels to the game.

Prompt 4

While playing through Bricks, the first thing I did to try and find the stairs was I tried pushing bricks around—which did work.  However, upon reaching level two, there were bricks pushed in the corner, and I knew I’d have to try something new.  I first tried to pull a brick by walking next to it and walking in the direction I wished to pull it; however, this was to no avail.  I did try to pull bricks multiple times and tried to pull them in multiple directions.  Eventually, I realized there were some pushable bricks in the center of the room, and I found that when I pushed a brick in one direction with another brick directly behind me, the brick behind me would follow in the same direction.  I give the game creator a lot of credit for putting those pushable bricks in the middle of the room, since the function of pushing bricks was something the player was already familiar with, and by using this function, the player was able to discover a new function of the game.  There always felt like a way to solve each the levels, and most of them didn’t have a “start over” solution, where the pieces are in the wrong spot and there’s nothing the player can do about it.  For this reason, the game never got frustrating, because the solution to the puzzle never seemed out of reach.  A lot of the appeal to this game was that there was no directionality to it; it was the player in a room, and the goal was to find stairs underneath the bricks.  Every brick moved felt almost like a gamble, and the reward of advancing to the next level was a great feeling.

Prompt 3: Describe an interesting interaction between two rules (or a rule and a goal).

The base rule in "Bricks" by Weihao Xu entails moving blocks. You can move a block by pushing it in one direction. This is the base Sokoban rule but Weihao takes it a step further by including a method to take boxes out of the corner. Another method to move the boxes is to have the player icon stand in-between two boxes. If the boxes are on top and below the character, the character can move both boxes up or down. If the boxes are to the right and to the left of the character, the character can move to the right and to the left. The goal of the first few levels of "Bricks" is to find a staircase hidden somewhere in the maze of boxes. Weihao introduces an interesting interaction between the two box rules and the goal because not only do you have to move boxes to find where the staircase may be hidden, you have to move the boxes to be close to the ones in the corner so that you can move the corner boxes out of the way. I felt very excited whenever I completed a puzzle because it is a game of hide and seek. I was on the lookout for the stairs and so had to move every box, according to the rules I outlined, to find it. When I found the staircase, the game had a high-pitched sound effect that made me feel like I had solved a mystery. Through this interaction between the two rules and the goal, I felt satisfaction and like I had solved something worth solving.